Underground in Berlin: A Young Woman's Extraordinary Tale of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany

by Marie Jalowicz Simon, Anthea Bell (Translator), Hermann Simon (Afterword), Hermann Simon (Foreword by)

Overview

A thrilling piece of undiscovered history, this is the true account of a young Jewish woman who survived World War II in Berlin.

In 1942, Marie Jalowicz, a twenty-year-old Jewish Berliner, made the extraordinary decision to do everything in her power to avoid the concentration camps. She removed her yellow star, took on an assumed identity, and disappeared into the city.

In the years that followed, Marie took shelter wherever it was offered, living with the strangest of bedfellows, from circus performers and committed communists to convinced Nazis. As Marie quickly learned, however, compassion and cruelty are very often two sides of the same coin.

Fifty years later, Marie agreed to tell her story for the first time. Told in her own voice with unflinching honesty, Underground in Berlin is a book like no other, of the surreal, sometimes absurd day-to-day life in wartime Berlin. This might be just one woman's story, but it gives an unparalleled glimpse into what it truly means to be human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316382090
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	09/08/2015
Edition description:	Translatio
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Marie Jalowicz Simon was born in 1922 into a middle-class Jewish family. She escaped the ghettos and concentration camps during the Second World War by hiding in Berlin. After the war she was full professor of the literary cultural history of classical antiquity at the Berlin Humboldt University. Shortly before her death, her son, Hermann Simon, director of the New Synagogue Berlin Foundation-Centrum Judaicum, recorded Marie telling her story. He acts as a spokesperson for Underground in Berlin.

Table of Contents

Foreword Hermann Simon vii

Prologue 1942 3

1 I was to learn to assert myself: Childhood and Youth in Berlin 9

2 Alone in the icy wastes: Forced Labor for Siemens 29

3 A rainbow of unimaginable beauty: Attempts at Flight; Going to Ground 83

4 The enemy is doing all this to us: The First Winter in Hiding 137

5 I was the girl without a name: After 1943: Something Like a Normal 227

6 I didn't have to surrender: The War Is Over 299

Afterword Hermann Simon 341

Index of Names 357

Picture Credits 363

Acknowledgments 364

About the Author 366

Questions and Topics for Discussion 367

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/20/2015
In this captivating story, Simon tells of her years in hiding as a Jewish woman during WWII. While still a teenager, she works as forced labor in a factory, leaving her middle-class life behind. Before Jalowicz is 20, she’s orphaned, losing both parents to illness, and must grow up fast. Having decided she won’t voluntarily submit to the Nazis, she’s even more determined after her aunt receives deportation papers in late 1941. She arranges to get herself fired from a factory and then convinces the authorities she’s already been sent away. She utilizes her time to walk different neighborhoods in Berlin, testing whether she will be harassed by police for not wearing the Jewish star and gaining the confidence she needs to mask her fear in encounters with Nazis or anyone suspicious of her. Jalowicz gets by on her wits, able to lie her way out of trouble when she’s threatened with arrest, and, amazingly, is never “denounced” by those who know the truth. Even more critically, she’s aided by family and friends, Jews and not, who give her food, money and most importantly, refuge. When friends learn of a foreign worker in need of a “wife”, she has the great fortune of being able to live in relative safety for the last two years of the war. Jalowicz’s story is unquestionably tragic in so many ways, but is also full of miracles, hope, and a future. Agent: George Lucas, Inkwell. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

A Washington Post Notable Non-Fiction Book of 2015

"The most extraordinary memoir of World War II I've ever encountered."—Gerard DeGroot, Washington Post

"Captivating....Jalowicz's story is unquestionably tragic in so many ways, but is also full of miracles, hope, and a future."—Publishers Weekly (Starred review)

"Marie Jalowicz Simon transports the reader right to wartime Berlin. Even seventy years later, her voice is young, fresh, and gripping. Her story is by turns funny, wise, and horrific. I felt like she was reaching out to me across time and I couldn't help but fall in love with her. Despite the incredible dangers she faced living underground in Nazi Berlin, Marie's story is incredibly life-affirming and at times, even joyful."
—Clara Kramer, author of Clara's War

"An absolutely gripping account of one young woman's struggle to escape deportation at the hands of the Nazis and of those who helped her. Marie Jalowicz-Simon details for the first time with total honesty the harsh sexual politics of survival in the Berlin underground."
—Thomas Ertman, New York University, author of Birth of the Leviathan

From the Publisher

08/01/2015
Simon's memoir poignantly demonstrates the moral ambiguity characterizing Germany during World War II. The author "went to ground" in 1942 after being a forced laborer for engineering company Siemens, narrowly eluding arrest and deportation. She attempted to escape fascist Europe but spent most of the remaining three years in Berlin. Many of her "rescuers" brutally exploited her for labor and sex. However, Simon was surprised by the genuine kindness and humanity even among hardened Nazis. The author dictated her story to her son, Hermann Simon, who then edited it for publication after verifying as much as he could through archives and other records. He was startled by his mother's accuracy as she relied on her memory entirely. The younger Simon provides footnotes in places where he discovered discrepancies between his mother's account and the historical record but otherwise lets the survivor speak for herself in her matter-of-fact style. VERDICT This book will appeal greatly to those who appreciate other Holocaust survival memoirs such as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. [See Prepub Alert, 3/23/15.]—Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL

Library Journal

2015-06-17
Simon's son gave her a tape recorder, and the result is a crisp, detailed memoir of her years as a U-Boat ("those who had gone underground in the Nazi period") in World War II-era Berlin. A Berlin-born, comfortably raised Jew, the author at first tried to cooperate, working as forced labor at Siemens. However, she well understood that for a Jew in Germany, there was no future. Her stories of sabotage of the nuts and bolts they built for Siemens show a people strong and clever enough to fool their captors. From the beginning, Simon relied on the help of Dr. Benno Heller, a gynecologist who connected her with those who would hide her. (Heller was imprisoned in Berlin, deported to Auschwitz, and ended up in Lieberose-Jamlitz, where he was last seen in early 1945.) The author's story of sitting quietly in a wicker chair so as not to alert neighbors to her presence was not a one-time thing but rather a constant as she hid in attics and half rooms. A large part of her story is hunger. Nearly everyone in Berlin was hungry, and Simon stayed with people who couldn't, or wouldn't, give her food. Her story is emotional, but her narrative is not. She discusses rapes, whether by a "protector" or Russian liberator, almost as asides or inevitabilities. One small ray of hope was her attempt to immigrate to Bulgaria with false papers to marry, though she eventually ran into the ubiquitous Nazi bureaucracy. She did have luck, especially with the Koch family, who supplied her with food and support throughout, and during a two-year respite in 1943, when she stayed with a woman named Luise Blasé. The book also includes a helpful "Index of Names." A coolly told story of a harrowing time and a young woman's struggle to survive.

Kirkus Reviews

This book is one woman’s personal story of the Holocaust. There’s no attempt to examine broader social or historical issues, just stories of life as a Jewish young woman in Berlin. Ellen Archer is solid as narrator, making this first-person work sound like she’s talking rather than reading, which is important, as the book is a transcription of lengthy oral interviews. The author recounts her experiences as a forced laborer in a war-related factory and her life as an “underground” (undetected) Jew amid the deportations to the concentration camps. Archer doesn’t overly dramatize passages, but she does adopts an appropriate tone of gravity. For the few humorous incidents she uses a lighter tone. The author’s incredible memory makes her story come to life, but the degree of detail sometimes slows down the narrative. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2016 - AudioFile

This book is one woman’s personal story of the Holocaust. There’s no attempt to examine broader social or historical issues, just stories of life as a Jewish young woman in Berlin. Ellen Archer is solid as narrator, making this first-person work sound like she’s talking rather than reading, which is important, as the book is a transcription of lengthy oral interviews. The author recounts her experiences as a forced laborer in a war-related factory and her life as an “underground” (undetected) Jew amid the deportations to the concentration camps. Archer doesn’t overly dramatize passages, but she does adopts an appropriate tone of gravity. For the few humorous incidents she uses a lighter tone. The author’s incredible memory makes her story come to life, but the degree of detail sometimes slows down the narrative. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2016 - AudioFile